Adsense Alternatives When Google Bans Your Account

Google recently disabled the Adsense account of John Q. Public for generating invalid or fraudulent clicks.

It has come to our attention that invalid clicks have been generated on the Google ads on your site(s). We have therefore disabled your Google AdSense account. Please understand that this step was taken in an effort to protect the interest of the AdWords advertisers. [from adsense-adclicks@google.com]

His subsequent appeals to Adsense Support were also turned down.

John Q. Public is now looking for alternate revenue streams to monetize his blog and sends us the following questions:

Q 1: Can I get back my Adsense Account ?

There are fewcases when previously banned Adsense publishers managed to reinstate their Google account successfully with Google only deducting some amount related to invalid clicks.

Thank you for clarifying your situation. We have reviewed your circumstances and have reinstated your account, effective immediately. Based on the findings of our investigation, we have deducted $30.82 from your account. [from adsense-adclicks-appeal@google.com]

While it is not a bad idea to follow your case with Google, not everyone may be so lucky as Stas or Jason. Generally, the chances of resurrecting your Adsense account are less.

Q 2: If the answer is No, then what's best alternate for adsense.

While Adsense still rules in terms of Ad inventory, there are tons of other advertising programs that can you consider for your blog depending on your niche and demographics. Here are some popular alternatives:

» Yahoo YPN - If you are located in the US, this is probably the best alternative to Adsense. Yahoo Panama is launching on February 5th.

» FeedBurner Ads - Feedburner is probably performing quite very well for a lot of publishers. The ads are CPM in nature and they have decent reporting engine.

» Text Link Ads, Adbrite - You can sell text links on your blog pages using any of these programs. They also let you add advertising in your RSS feeds.

» Kontera, IntelliTXT - These are inline contextual advertising programs that double-underline the keywords. Some users may however find this annyoying since the ad appears in a pop-up window.

» Chitika, Amazon Affiliates - If you are writing a product blog, Chitika may result in good conversion rates - people read the product review on your website and then proceed to these sites for buying the links. Amazon is good for blog that enjoy a fan following and readers buy what you recommend.

Other popular advertising options include Tribal Fusion, Adify, Pheedo and BlogAds depending on your site traffic. [Picture from Flickr]

Q 3: Does Google block the account or the website itself ? Actually I was planning to sell my blog so can the new owner use his own Adsense Account to insert ads in my blog ?

Google generally bans the Adsense account, not the website showing the Google ads. It is however recommended that the "prospective buyer" checks this with Google Adsense Support himself before closing the deal with you. It is very likely that Google will permit him to show ads on your site using his own Adsense account.

Important: Just take care that you don't open another Adsense account with Google using different credentials (like an abbreviated name or a different address) - Google is very likely to discover this activity and they'll will probably ban you again. [Name changed to protect identity]